Some variations on a groove Billy Higgins plays on the Ornette Coleman tune Una Muy Bonita, on Bobby Hutcherson’s album Stick-Up!. It’s a New Orleans type thing, reminiscent of parts of Poinciana, as played by […]
Year: 2019
Anything at all, with energy
Why do they always look surprised. Today there is two big pieces in The Atlantic about social media advancing some very dark ideas, and about trolling and fascism, so maybe it’s a good day to […]
Page o’ coordination: Cinquillo
Here’s an easy page o’ coordination based on a basic bell rhythm, known in Latin music circles as “cinquillo”— which basically means quintuplet. It’s not a quintuplet, it’s the indicated 5-note rhythm, but that’s what […]
Tune list for sessions
This is the tune list for a weekly session I play. We go through a lot of material, most of it kind of unusual, and many things that are rather challenging. I shlep this big […]
Rudiments in 5/8
A page of snare drum rudiment practice phrases, written in 5/8, in a 3+2 phrasing. Keep this with your copy of Haskell Harr (book 2) or Rudimental Swing Solos. These can all be played at […]
Groove o’ the day: Lex Humphries – Abana
Back to posting drum stuff after a shocking, depressing last week, with the massacre of a lot of innocent humans in New Zealand. Here’s some music for anyone still struggling to find their equilibrium. I was […]
Daily best music in the world: Oval
You know what I’m tired of? Music that sounds like it was created with a free Android app. So here is one of my favorite albums in the late 90s: 94 Diskont by the German […]
From the zone: brush things
A little item from Ted Warren, author of the excellent Trap’d blog, who is clearly not suffering from any kind of OCD, having written this upside down on some kind of assignment sheet. I post so […]
Mike Clark gig and clinic
A few thoughts and observations relating to a Mike Clark / Donald Harrison gig and clinic in Portland on Sunday and Monday: First: It continues to impress me that everybody knows that same stuff. Whether […]
Hemiola funk series – basic logic
I want to walk through the logic of this hemiola funk series of posts— at least the logic of one part of it, which may be difficult to see on playing through the materials. I […]
CYMBALISTIC: Describing cymbal sounds
This is a new post on the Cymbalistic blog. I do post good stuff there (I think) which I don’t share on this blog, so I encourage you do scroll through and check in regularly. […]
Groove o’ the day: Hot Rod
Update: There is some dispute as to whether the drummer here is actually Idris Muhammad, which would not surprise me at all, because this is the kind of stuff he plays. This is from a […]